Revolutionary political philosopher, writer and activist Grace Lee Boggs (1915-2015) dedicated her life to creating social change, often in collaboration with her husband James Boggs. Through their work such as the book Revolution and Evolution in the 20th Century, the National Organization for an American Revolution and Detroit Summer, they advocated for each person to make an internal political evolution that could be amplified to the community and the world. The title of Grace Lee Boggs's 1984 newsletter "America — Love it Enough to Change it" came from a James Boggs quote that exemplified their shared commitment to social change: "I love this country not only because my ancestors' blood is in the soil but because I see the potential of what it can become."
"America — Love It Enough to Change It," 1984. Grace Lee Boggs's pamphlet focused on the 1984 election and reactions to the Reagan administration. / THF722642
Grace Lee Boggs's early life experiences with anti-Asian discrimination shaped her political identity. When her parents immigrated to the United States from China’s Guangdong province in 1911, it was during a period of heightened anti-Asian sentiment in the United States, Canada, and Europe. Between 1882 and 1943, the U.S. government implemented restrictive legislation against Asian immigration, while racist rhetoric about Asian immigrants was common in American life and popular culture. Lee Boggs's father was known as "the king of restaurant businessmen among the Chinese" because he owned and operated two successful Chinese restaurants in Manhattan's Theater District. This success did not insulate Grace Lee Boggs or her family from bigotry. Even though the family could afford a three-story house in Jackson Heights, Queens, restrictive covenants barred any non-white person from owning property in the area; their white contractor's name was on the title of their home. When Grace Lee Boggs was in her twenties, multiple potential employers told her that they would not hire a Chinese American woman even though she had a PhD in philosophy from Bryn Mawr College and was a trained stenographer. In 1940, she was hired as a librarian at the University of Chicago.
Children in Chinatown, San Francisco, California, 1899. Many Chinese Americans faced discriminatory laws around housing, immigration, and jobs following the passage of the first Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. Many were forced to live in specific neighborhoods where they could rent a home and set up their own businesses. / THF119079
This job connected her to local activists who were protesting the untenable living conditions in Chicago's predominately Black South Side neighborhoods. In joining them, Lee Boggs learned about organizing action, leftist political thought, and the ways that discrimination affected Black Americans. Lee Boggs wanted to continue working for social change, so she joined the Workers Party and participated in the March on Washington Movement (MOWM).
MOWM began in 1941 when A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin organized Black Americans to march on Washington, D.C. to demand equal employment opportunities for manufacturing jobs. This mobilization caused President Franklin Roosevelt to issue Executive Order 8802 to establish the first Fair Employment Practices Committee. As the movement persisted throughout the war years, MOWM organized non-violent demonstrations to force manufacturers to follow through with the government's mandate. Grace Lee Boggs championed MOWM and similar people-led movements in her work for the rest of her life.
Picketers in Support of Hiring Negro Workers for Ford Motor Company, 1942. MOWM inspired this Detroit-based protest to demand Ford hire Black Women in their plants. / THF132237
Between 1942 and 1962, Lee Boggs worked with leftist philosophers C.L.R. James, and Raya Dunayevskaya. The three of them created a Marxist collective called the Johnson-Forest Tendency — later known as the Correspondence Publishing Committee — in response to the Workers Party's lack of political and social action. Members of Johnson-Forest Tendency — known as “Johnsonites” — wrote and published pamphlets that called for racial equality, economic justice, and labor organizing. Through this work Grace Lee Boggs met her fellow Johnsonite and her future writing partner and husband, James Boggs.
But What About the Workers?, 1973. James Boggs was a prolific political writer in his own right. In works like But What About the Workers? Boggs wrote based on his experiences as a Black American auto worker. / THF266642
James Boggs (1919-1993) was born in a small community near Selma, Alabama, where he attended high school and which would become a strategic part of the coming Civil Rights Movements. James left the South in 1937 to search for work during the Great Depression. He settled in Detroit when Executive Order 8802 opened manufacturing jobs to Black men; from 1942 to 1970, James Boggs was a Chrysler employee. During that time, he became increasingly politically involved both in labor and protest movements. Boggs joined the Socialist Workers Party, wrote critically about concessions the unions made with auto companies, and participated in anti-segregation sit-ins in downtown Detroit's bars and restaurants. When Raya Dunayevskaya moved the Johnsonites' headquarters to Detroit in 1952, James and Grace Lee Boggs became further acquainted and married the following year.
James Boggs was a self-educated political philosopher who used his experiences to inform his writing; he encouraged others to see themselves as potential forces for change no matter their background. Although Grace Lee Boggs had degrees from two Seven Sisters colleges, she also believed that everyday lived experiences — rather than academic credentials — were valuable teachers to affect change in the world.
The Johnson-Forest Tendency was focused on international movements and having an academic and philosophical pedigree. After James and Grace Lee Boggs split from the Johnsonites in 1962, they emphasized local political action in Detroit. For Grace Lee Boggs, the city of Detroit was a place where political action and human connection were a part of everyday life. As she wrote in her autobiography, "It was a city of neighborhoods and beautiful trees. It also felt like a 'Movement' city where radical history had been made and could be made again." The Boggses lived in a predominantly Black and working-class neighborhood on the East side of Detroit. Grace Lee Boggs also co-organized the Detroit Walk to Freedom in 1963, which was a mass march in solidarity with the Southern civil rights struggle that also highlighted issues of inequality in the North.
"Walk to Freedom" March in Detroit, Michigan, June 23, 1963. Over 100,000 participants marched down Woodward Avenue in downtown Detroit during the Walk to Freedom, making it one of the largest civil rights demonstrations to date. / THF705511
Throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, the Boggses were at forefront of radical Black American activism and consciousness raising in the city of Detroit and across the country. Their work combined the personal with the philosophical, and political; it encompassed everything from helping neighborhood teenagers find jobs to holding audiences with leaders like Malcolm X, Lyman Paine, Ossie Davis, and Ruby Dee. After James Boggs's 1993 death, Grace Lee Boggs dedicated the remainder of her life to championing a need for a revolution that focused on evolution, one where over time people could reimagine themselves, their communities, and the world.
Grace Lee Boggs via Wikimedia Commons
Kayla Chenault is an Associate Curator at The Henry Ford.
Bicycles take center stage in The Henry Ford’s newest Collections Gallery exhibit. / Photo by Matt Anderson
The Henry Ford is well known for its transportation collections, including automobiles from the road and race track, innovative early aircraft, and railroad locomotives of staggering size. But our holdings also include an impressive number of two-wheeled vehicles. Several of them are featured in our newest exhibit, Bicycles: Powering Possibilities, located in Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation’s Collections Gallery (on view May 3, 2025 - February 15, 2026).
Bicycles gave many children a sense of independence, whether riding with friends or earning money on a paper route. / THF201333
There’s something almost magical about bicycles, powered by our own effort and ambition. For children, bikes provide an early taste of freedom and independence. For adults, they offer a green alternative for daily commuting, or a recreational escape along paved paths or off-road trails. It was the bicycle that introduced Americans to the power of personal transportation. Cyclists were the first group to lobby for better roads, and 19th-century bicycle technology and manufacturing techniques influenced two of the 20th century’s defining machines: the automobile and the airplane.
This simple Draisine, built about 1818, is an ancestor to the modern bicycle. / THF108100
Bicycles: Powering Possibilities tells the story through 17 significant machines. The oldest and most basic is our circa 1818 Draisine. It’s as simple as can be. Riders simply scooted their feet along the ground to make the vehicle go. Critics at the time said it was nothing more than a “good way to wear out shoes,” but the little Draisine effectively doubled a pedestrian’s pace. More influential, and more recognizable to modern cyclists, is our 1866 Sargent & Company Velocipede. French blacksmith Pierre Michaux is credited with adding foot pedals to the front axle, giving riders the means to move without their feet touching the ground.
Big wheels increased a bicyclist’s speed and power, but they intimidated new riders. / THF203364
British racer James Moore turned heads in 1870 riding a bicycle with an oversized front wheel. That big wheel allowed Moore to move faster and farther with each turn of the pedals, and the seat’s location above the wheel increased his leverage when pumping his legs. By the end of the decade, high-wheel bikes like our circa 1878 Singer & Company machine were everywhere. But riding a high wheeler required an extra dose of athleticism. Just getting on or off was a challenge, and even experienced riders dreaded tumbling over the handlebars in a “header” accident.
British manufacturer Rover took the next step in the bicycle’s evolution with a new design in 1885. Rover’s “safety bicycle” featured two modestly sized wheels propelled by a chain-and-sprocket drive. The smaller wheels made it easier to climb into the saddle, and the sprockets provided the same mechanical advantage as direct-drive high wheelers. Safety bikes like The Henry Ford’s 1892 Rambler made biking more accessible and ignited a bicycle boom that, by the mid-1890s, saw more than a million new bikes built in the United States each year. At the same time, bicycle competitions grew in popularity both here and abroad. Racers used advanced, lightweight machines like the 1898 Tribune “Blue Streak” to break records and best opponents on tracks, trails, and roads.
All fads run their course, and the 1890s bicycle boom was no different. The turn of the 20th century saw the market flooded with poorly built budget bikes that turned off riders. At the same time, automobiles and motorcycles eclipsed the bicycle’s technical novelty. By 1902, American bicycle production was only a fraction of what it had been a few years earlier.
Adults may have abandoned the bicycle, but children kept riding. Savvy manufacturers shifted toward the youth market, producing children’s bicycles based on adult motorcycles, with flashy colors and stylish accessories that appealed to young riders. Schwinn had baby boomers dreaming about its top-of-the-line Phantom series, while Schwinn and Huffy both later lured the boomers’ Gen X and millennial kids with entry-level BMX bikes.
American cyclists won nine medals at the 1984 Summer Olympics, inspiring a new generation of riders / THF720378
In the early 1970s, lighter multi-speed machines lured American adults back into the saddle. Ten-speed bikes like the 1970 Schwinn Continental were well suited to road riding in a variety of conditions. Within 20 years, bikes with 18, 21 or even 25 speeds were widely available. Today bicycling is as popular as ever in the U.S., and new riders continue to take up the sport thanks to promotional efforts, safety campaigns, and the spread of urban bike lanes and rural recreational trails.
Bike racer Major Taylor broke records and endorsed manufacturers like Orient. / THF207504
Visitors to Bicycles: Powering Possibilities will meet several influential builders, riders, and racers. Albert A. Pope applied early mass-production techniques to bicycle manufacturing at his state-of-the-art factory in Connecticut. Major Taylor wowed audiences in the U.S., Europe and Australia with his speed sprints and, as a Black American, did so in the face of ugly discrimination. Tillie Anderson was praised as one of the best riders of her day and is said to have won all but seven of the 130 competitions she entered. Frank Schwinn and Horace “Huffy” Huffman revived their respective family businesses by building some of the 20th century’s most popular bicycles. Of course, we can’t forget the Wright brothers, whose 1890s bicycle shop gave them the resources to build and fly the world’s first successful airplane.
“Bicycles: Powering Possibilities” includes 17 machines representing 200 years of development. / Photo by Matt Anderson
The exhibit’s interactive experiences let visitors join in the fun. Handling different materials like wood, steel, and aluminum shows how a bike’s weight is affected by its very substance. Sprockets and chains illustrate the mechanical advantages of multiple gear ratios. Spokes with decorations and playing cards demonstrate how young riders have customized their bicycles for generations. Video displays feature bicycle scenes from favorite movies and television shows, while vintage newsreels showcase long-ago bicycle rides and races. Additionally, three point-of-view videos let visitors ride along over mountain trails in Utah, through Manhattan traffic to Times Square, and along Mackinac Island’s tranquil Main Street.
Bicycles: Powering Possibilities is on view in Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation’s Collections Gallery from May 3, 2025, through February 15, 2026. Don’t miss the opportunity to see, study, and celebrate these mechanical marvels that have kept us moving for two centuries.
Matt Anderson is Curator of Transportation at The Henry Ford.
Imagine you are walking through the collections at a library. When you think about a book on those shelves, what comes to mind? How do you picture it?
Most likely what you thought of was something that has a rectangular shape, smooth picture or text cover, and white pages. While that is most likely the case, you might be surprised at what else might be hiding in there. Sometimes, you may stumble upon a book that is just a little different.
Here in the Benson Ford Research Center at The Henry Ford, we have a few examples of some fun surprises one could come across in the library.
This first book has a trio of strangeness as it is the oldest book we have in our collections, but it is also a French translation of a book regarding military information. All of which is a bit different for the scope of our collection. The book is a translated version of De Re Militari written by Flavius Vegetius Renatus written in 1536.
While this next book may not be that old itself, people have been making miniature books for at least 500 years. After searching through the library and museum collections, the smallest book I believe to be in our collections is this teeny tiny book of a man who had a large impact on the world. It is a miniature book from 1961 containing the inaugural address of the 35th president, John F. Kennedy. The dimensions of the book and case are H 2.875” x W 2.438” x L .5 in.
Miniature Book and Case, "The Inaugural Address of John Fitzgerald Kennedy," 1961 / THF166334
Although that one is the smallest, we do have a few other peculiarly small books. Some examples include the copy of Robinson Crusoe below and a few books that are on exhibit with Your Place in Time. All are part of a book series called the Big Little Book, first started in 1932 by Whitman Publishing Company. The Bytes of Wisdom miniature book also happens to be a pop-up book! The Abraham Lincoln miniature book on the far right is a very close contender to the JFK miniature book above, being just about a quarter of an inch bigger in height.
The Big Little Book copy of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe; Bytes of wisdom: a user's guide to the world. R 004 C957 1996.; Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, 1861-1865 : selections from his writings. R 973.7 L736 1950. / Image by Mollie Gordier
On the other hand, we have some hefty and oversized items such as this Norman Rockwell biography, a self-titled book on artist Alexander Girard, a book of America in maps, and this understandably chunky second edition of Webster’s dictionary from 1946.
Norman Rockwell: artist and illustrator. X NC 759.13 R684n, 1970.; Alexander Girard. X NC 745.4092 G517 O44 2011.; America in maps dating from 1500 to 1856. X NC 912.73 A51.; Webster's new international dictionary of the English language: unabridged. X NC 423 W382n 1946. / Image by Mollie Gordier
Some books break the rectangular mold, such as this one commemorating the 40th anniversary of the space race that heightened when Americans Neil Armstrong and Edwin A. “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. stepped foot on the moon in 1969. Instead of an angular shape, this book and others in this series all take the shape of a circle.
One small step: 40th anniversary of the race to the moon. 387.8 O58 2009. / Image by Mollie Gordier
Beyond the basic shapes, there is this Smucker’s cookbook that contains some delicious recipes within pages that imitate an actual jar of Smucker’s Sweet Orange Marmalade.
Smucker's best-loved recipes. NC 641.6 S666 2006. / Image by Mollie Gordier
This next book took a different route with a stylish cover made entirely of metal. It is a 1968 exhibit catalog for the Museum of Modern Art that also happened to feature artist Lillian Schwartz — an artist whose work is included in our collections.
The machine : as seen at the end of the mechanical age. 709.22 H917 1968. / Image by Mollie Gordier
Some books simply have a small touch that is outside the box, such as the following two books that not only have aesthetically pleasing covers, but they are also a tactile experience. We have a glittery history of the Academy Awards with an iconic awardee envelope adhered to the front cover and a velvety book about dolls.
![The Academy Awards: the complete history of Oscar. X 791.43 K56 2002.; The Doll. X 745.5922 F791 [1972].](/images/default-source/blog-images/pic-7-textured-covers.png?sfvrsn=4fad0801_1)
The Academy Awards: the complete history of Oscar. X 791.43 K56 2002.; The Doll. X 745.5922 F791 [1972]. / Image by Mollie Gordier
This is especially the case with this book about miniature golf written by John Margolies that has a cover made of artificial grass.
John Margolies's miniature golf. 796.3522 M329, 1987. / Image by Mollie Gordier
Not only is the cover of a book fair game in customization, the text block edges of a book can also feature some originality. Here is a sampling of some of the colorful pages we have at the Henry Ford. Some of these examples have solid or metallic colors while some of the older rare books have a technique called “marbling” covering the pages. Marbling was also very popular as decoration on front covers or the endsheets, which are the pages adhered to the inside of the cover.
Image by Mollie Gordier
The existence of books and all their various forms is vast and quite rich, and is not easily condensed into a short blog post. If you enjoy understanding the many shapes and forms of books over time and the plethora of interesting influences in those changes, you may be interested in reading a book…about books! Such as these found in Benson Ford Research Center library: The Book by Amaranth Borsuk and The book: a cover-to-cover exploration of the most powerful object of our time.
Image by Mollie Gordier
Mollie Gordier is the Technical Services Librarian at The Henry Ford.
"Agras MG-1" Drone, with remote control, battery, and battery charger, 2016. Gift of Northwestern Michigan College / THF199347
Curators at The Henry Ford document milestones in their given areas of responsibility. For agriculture and environment collections, one significant recent development involves uses of uncrewed aerial technology — popularly known as drones — to apply growth enhancers (fertilizers) and plant protectors (herbicides and pesticides) to specific locations in fields, vineyards, and orchards. Curator Debra Reid began conversations with the Michigan Soybean Committee in 2023 to secure a drone for our collections to document this aspect of precision agriculture.
Drones flew on military missions, predominately, until the early 2000s. One example includes the 1918 Kettering Bug, described as the world's first "self-flying aerial torpedo.” As a Smithsonian Magazine article explained, “the simple, cheaply made 12-foot-long wooden biplane with a wingspan of nearly 15 feet” included “a 180-pound bomb. It was powered by a four-cylinder, 40-horsepower engine manufactured by Ford.” These precision-based technologies aimed to put fewer pilots at risk.
Employees of the Dayton-Wright Airplane Company Working on the Kettering Bug, 1918 / THF270430
Other drones in The Henry Ford’s collections address robotics in aerial photography and stunts.
3DRobotics Solo Drone, 2015-2016. Gift of Industrial Designers Society of America / THF193809
3D Robotics (3DR) released its Solo drone in 2015 to great fanfare. NBC News claimed the Solo, when paired with a GoPro HERO camera, could take Hollywood-quality shots. 3DR, the largest North American manufacturer of drones for consumers at the time, believed that the quadcopter with its open-source operating software would dominate the aerial photography market. It may have done so, but competition from the China-based Dajiang Innovation Technology Company (DJI) challenged 3DR and outmaneuvered the Berkeley, California, company. In response, 3DR abandoned the drone manufacturing business and DJI came to dominate the hobby market for uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs).
Front view of the "Agras MG-1" Drone with propellers folded to show the radar module, spray tank, spray nozzles, and landing gear, 2016. Gift of Northwestern Michigan College / THF199333
DJI manufactured the Agras MG-1 specifically for the growing market in precision agriculture and advertised the octocopter as “designed for variable rate application of liquid pesticides, fertilizers, and herbicides, bringing new levels of efficiency and manageability to agriculture." Farmers found the investment paid off in numerous ways. They reduced input costs by reducing the quantity of synthetic chemicals applied. Additional environmental benefits included reduced run-off that negatively affects water quality and reduced greenhouse gas emissions because farmers used less fossil fuel during application. Reducing vehicular traffic also improved field health by reducing soil compaction which supported regenerative agriculture goals.
The rapid expansion of hobby and commercial drone markets prompted licensing regulation. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) required commercial drone operator licensing in 2016, but some schools had anticipated the need. Northwestern Michigan College first offered a course in Uncrewed Aerial Systems operation at the Yuba Airport in Grand Traverse County, Michigan, in 2010, becoming one of the first schools in the United States to do so. In 2013, NMC launched an Associate in Applied Science degree with a specialization in UAS. Then, NMC purchased one of the first DJI spray drones used in the United States, according to Tony Sauerbrey, UAS program manager at NMC. The Agras MG-1 facilitated the rapid expansion of commercial drone use in Michigan farm fields.
Instruction in Agras MG-1 operation. Gift of Northwestern Michigan College / THF717085
Learning to operate the Agras MG-1, dispensing water, rather than chemicals. Gift of Northwestern Michigan College / THF717084
The Agras MG-1 in flight over a Michigan vineyard. Gift of Northwestern Michigan College / THF717081
DJI designed the Agras MG-1 to carry 22 pounds of liquid pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers — an amount that could treat an average of an acre in 10 minutes. Its “intelligent” operating system relied on global positioning systems (GPS) data to fly level to the terrain and to automatically adjust the quantity of spray to the flying speed and thus ensure even distribution. Operators had to understand the inputs as well as ways to override them if the battery ran low, the tank ran dry or changes in the weather made it difficult to operate the drone safely.
Rapid expansion in drone-aided agriculture led to training alliances. NMC partnered in 2017 with Michigan State University's Institute of Agricultural Technology so MSU students could meet drone licensing requirements. NMC also partnered in 2020 with Unmanned Systems Institute which administered additional industry safety certifications. Instructors need up-to-date technology, not dated UAS. Thus, NMC retired its Argas M-1, and we acquired it to document early UAS use in precision agriculture.
Debra Reid is Curator of Agriculture and the Environment at The Henry Ford.
Stand 44 (left) and Plum Market Kitchen (right) at The Henry Ford / Images courtesy of Debra Reid
The Henry Ford includes five food service locations that have been awarded Green Restaurant Association certification. This certification recognizes excellence in eight environmental impact categories. The Green Restaurant association (GRA) says the standards, "reflect over 30 years of research in the field of restaurants and the environment. Thousands of restaurants and hundreds of thousands of restaurant personnel provide the living laboratory for the continued evolution of the GRA standards. The purpose of the GRA standards is to provide a transparent way to measure each restaurant's environmental accomplishments, while providing a pathway for the next steps they can take to improve their environmental sustainability."
Image courtesy of Green Restaurant Association, dinegreen.com
The Henry Ford's certified food service locations are:
- Stand 44
- Taste of History
- Plum Market Kitchen
- Group Lunch Room B Concessions
- THF Catering
Of note about the The Henry Ford's restaurants and the award scores is that Stand 44 is the only GRA 4 Star certified restaurant in Michigan — the highest rating that you can receive in GRA certification — and one of only twenty in the entire United States. Five of those twenty are in one building on California Polytechnic's San Luis Obispo campus. Three more are dining halls on the campus of Towson University in Maryland.
Stand 44’s waste composting method, which makes use of an industrial biodigester, was a key element of the venue's 4 star GRA certification. / Image by The Henry Ford
Earning these recognitions required cross-functional effort across The Henry Ford. The certification categories focus specifically on energy use, water management, waste management, building & furnishings, chemicals, product sourcing, reusables & disposables, and Education & Transparency. The high points of our efforts to secure Green Restaurant certification include:
- Reducing energy consumption by replacing non-energy-efficient equipment with Energy Star dish washers, ranges, and coolers
- Reducing wastewater contamination by installing oil separators in kitchen drains
- Recycling cardboard
- Recycling glass, plastic, and metals through single-stream recycling
- Recycling scrap metal in conjunction with Facilities & Grounds
- Recycling fresh food scraps to Firestone Farm livestock
- Biodigesting waste and returning it to Greenfield Village fields
- Sourcing green or biodegradable products for food service, including take-out boxes, plasticware, and napkins
- Sourcing fresh foods locally to reduce energy used in processing and transport
- Educating about heritage crops on the menu (in conjunction with Greenfield Village presenters and through presentations to Henry Ford Academy students)
While existing efforts have met green standards for the certification, additional opportunities await future attention. These efforts include composting and biodigesting in Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation, eliminating single-use plastics, and more robust recycling of aluminum cans and glass bottles. The Henry Ford aims to become the premier example of large institution-wide efforts to achieve environmentally sustainable practices, educating staff, students, and guests about best practices that lessen individual and institutional impact on the environment.
Lee Ward is Director of Food Service and Catering at The Henry Ford.
Spring! A time to celebrate! The season brings longer days, warmer weather, and new life. Budding flowers, baby chicks and lambs, painted eggs, and, of course, the Easter Bunny — all symbolize the return of spring and the end of dreary winter.
Easter Greeting Postcard, circa 1910 / THF113344
The Easter Bunny's ancient origins are unclear, but various cultures have long associated the amazingly reproductive rabbit (or hare) with spring and the celebration of new life. Spring is the time when hares and rabbits — hares are larger and have longer ears and hind feet — produce large litters of leverets (baby hares) or kittens (baby rabbits). This association was a small step toward a connection with spring and Easter, the Christian holiday celebrating the resurrection of Christ.
The Easter Bunny (originally known as the Easter Hare or Easter Rabbit) is believed to have originated in German folklore, which described the mythic creature bringing colorfully decorated eggs to children. Whether the Easter Bunny laid the eggs or hid them may be a matter of interpretation, especially when inquisitive children ask for explanations. Written accounts from Germany in the 1680s mention the Easter egg-laying hare, identified hundreds of years later as the Easter "Bunny." German immigrants brought the tradition to colonial America, perhaps as early as the late 1600s. A drawing by Fraktur artist Johann Conrad Gilbert (1734-1812) depicting a hare hopping along with a basket of decorated eggs provides more substantial proof of the Easter Bunny in early America. Yet, few outside the areas populated by German-speaking immigrants recognized the mythic creature. By the late 1800s, however, the Easter Bunny — like Santa Claus and the Christmas tree — was well on its way to becoming an established holiday symbol throughout America. Growing commercialization of Easter materials — greeting cards, books, toys, candies and sweets, and other material — spread the holiday celebration across cultures, establishing the mythic egg-bringer as a holiday tradition. In the early 1900s, Americans would shed the monikers, Easter Hare or Easter Rabbit, in favor of the more kid-friendly Easter Bunny.
Check out these other Spring and Easter posts found on The Henry Ford's webpages:
Resources used for this article:
- Shoemaker, Alfred L. Eastertide in Pennsylvania, a folk cultural study. Kutztown, PA: Pennsylvania Folklife Society. 1960, pp. 46-50.
- Winick, Stephen. "On the Bunny Trail: In Search of the Easter Bunny." Library of Congress Blogs: Folklife Today. American Folklife Center & Veterans History Project. March 22, 2016.
Andy Stupperich is an Associate Curator at The Henry Ford.
Have you ever decked yourself out in head-to-toe colors of your favorite sports team? Discussed theories about your favorite TV show? Celebrated a fictional holiday like Festivus, wished someone “May the Fourth be with you,” or worn pink on Wednesdays? If so, then you’ve participated in fandom.
On May 4th of each year, Star Wars fans celebrate Star Wars Day. Once a grassroots, fan-led celebration, it has been embraced by Lucasfilm and Disney and bled over into the popular consciousness. / THF95553
The idea of fandom — a group of fans of something or someone, particularly enthusiastic ones — can trace its roots back to the literature of the 1800s and early 1900s. In 1894, literary scholar and critic George Saintsbury coined the term “Janeites” to refer to the most intense devotees of the work of Jane Austen. In 1903, after receiving numerous letters from the character’s devoted fanbase (and after 20,000 readers cancelled their subscriptions to The Strand, in which his stories were published), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle brought Sherlock Holmes back to life, eight years after killing the character off in hopes of moving on to other projects. Doyle’s “resurrection” of Sherlock Holmes is perhaps one of the earliest examples of fandom shaping the work that it so adores.
Sherlock Holmes’s popularity has lasted well beyond his own “lifetime.” He has been portrayed in film and television over 250 times, and is often treated as a real historic figure, despite his fictional nature. / THF722711
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, fandom communities began to coalesce around the stories published by Hugo Gernsback in Amazing Stories, the first science fiction magazine. Gernsback published the letters and addresses of fans who sent in mail to the magazine, allowing fans to begin writing to each other, too, meeting up whenever possible. In 1934, Gernsback created the Science Fiction League, a correspondence club for fans of the genre. The Philadelphia Science Fiction Conference was held in 1935, arguably the first of what would become known as “fan cons,” or fan conventions.
Science fiction remained a fertile ground for fandom. In the 1970s, fans of shows like Star Trek began to focus on the relationships between characters, producing creative works like fan fiction and ”fan vids” that explored character dynamics beyond what was presented in the original media. / THF362462
The bar for fandom in music was set by Beatlemania. From 1963 to 1966, young, passionate, female fans of The Beatles created a subculture unlike any the world had previously seen. Originally, Beatlemania was confined to Britain; the phenomenon went international, though, with the band’s appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. Everywhere the Beatles went, they were followed by screaming fans, captivated by the band’s memorable hooks, accessible themes, and on-stage charisma. This fervor would last until the group’s last stadium concert in 1966. Beatlemania created the template that later boy bands would seek to imitate, and screaming female fans became a staple of boy band concerts into the 21st century.
At the peak of Beatlemania, there was a plethora of Beatles memorabilia available on the market – whether you wanted to represent the band as a whole, or a particular favorite Beatle. / THF92312
Fandom can be more than just a one-way street. The relationship between Taylor Swift and her fans — dubbed “Swifties” — has changed the face of fandom, both inside and outside of the music industry. Throughout her career, Swift has interacted with her fans on social media, teased upcoming projects with “Easter eggs” for them to decode, and at one point even invited them to “Secret Sessions” — exclusive, invitation-only listening parties where select fans, handpicked by Swift, were the first to hear her soon-to-be-released albums. In return, Swift’s fans have catapulted her to incredible heights of success. The relationship between artist and fandom, however, is not without concern, as Swift herself has alluded to the parasocial extent to which some fans have taken the relationship.
In 2024, Time magazine named Taylor Swift their Person of the Year. The level of fandom surrounding her that year was such that she became what writer Sam Lansky called “the main character of the world." / THF722029
History shows that fandoms have the power to shape popular culture. But why do people join fandoms? The same themes — the feeling of acceptance, understanding — crop up in many discussions around the question. So, too, does the topic of escapism — using another world, or even another person, as a distraction from the stress of one’s own life. It is part of human nature to seek inclusion and comfort, to feel as if we belong as part of a group, that we have found a safe space. Perhaps this, then, is the role that fandoms fill, and why they remain a recurring part of our stories.
Rachel Yerke-Osgood is an Associate Curator at The Henry Ford.
The Jackson House: a Curated Story from Selma, Alabama, to Greenfield Village
At the end of last summer, the story of the Jackson House, a landmark symbol of the Long Civil Rights Movement, took a historic turn. On Maple Lane in Greenfield Village, initial repositioning of the more than 100-year-old structure began, marking the next chapter in a meticulous reconstruction project. With its relocation from Selma, Alabama, to Dearborn, Michigan, the Jackson House is set to give millions of visitors to The Henry Ford the opportunity to hear stories of family, friendship, leadership and Selma’s role in one of the most momentous movements in U.S. history — the organized 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches that helped ensure all Americans would have the civil rights and voting rights promised to them.
Photo by Brian Egen
It was Dr. Sullivan Jackson and Mrs. Richie Jean Sherrod Jackson who opened their Selma home to close friend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his allies in Dallas County and nationally as a place to rest and strategize the path forward to secure voting rights for African Americans. Hundreds of people came through the home, including several Nobel Peace Prize winners, international dignitaries, media representatives, and activists and supporters of civil rights for all. This activism helped lead to the passing of the Voting Rights Act in June 1965.
Much work still needs to be done in the home’s reconstruction in Greenfield Village, which first required preparing the site between the George Washington Carver Memorial and the William Holmes McGuffey Birthplace. Last fall, further reassembling of the house’s structural components, such as its covered front porch, commenced. Over the coming months, the roof will be replaced, floors and walls repaired, electrical and plumbing systems connected, central heating and air-conditioning will be installed, and fire protection and security systems will be added.
Less visible, yet just as critical, behind-the-scenes work also continues, said Amber N. Mitchell, The Henry Ford’s curator of Black history. “The home will look much different than what it appeared in Selma before the relocation,” she said. “We are renovating it to look similar to what it did around 1965, and there are many ways to interpret that time period that we are investigating.
“This is a true collaboration,” she added. “A combination of the actual structure reconstruction, our historical resources and great detective work on the part of our curatorial team and staff to ensure the Jackson House’s story of family and community is as uplifted as the connecting story of the voting rights movement.”
A public opening of the restored Jackson House in Greenfield Village is currently planned for June 2026.
This post was written by Jennifer LaForce and adapted from an article in the Winter/Spring 2025 issue of The Henry Ford Magazine.
The road to diverting waste from landfills is naturally a long one. The process involves more than simply owning a receptacle for recyclables. In Michigan, recycling has waned significantly in recent years, which is why The Henry Ford must be a leading example of the potential impact we have on our environment by reducing and diverting waste.
Single-Stream Recycling
The Henry Ford's strategic goal to "cultivate environmental responsibility" includes tracking our waste streams, educating the wider public about its importance through informational signage, and diverting them to a home where they can be reused instead of wasting away in a landfill.
Receptacles for recycling and landfill waste at Stand 44 restaurant / Photo courtesy of Aias Danier
Tracking recycling (cardboard, plastic, paper, and metal) and landfill (all other waste) usage across the entire campus of The Henry Ford, including facility offices, and educating the public require considerable thought from both an operations and aesthetics perspective. Educating the public (and staff) requires a powerful and effective front-end presentation paired with an equally efficient back-of-house operation. To further this effort, multiple departments are cooperating to improve our front-end museum recycling experience while upgrading our back-of-house programs and recycling areas to accommodate. Operationally modern recycling bins with a historical touch, carefully considered front-end signage, a cleaner back-of-house program for efficient hauling, and optimized roll-off dumpsters for more accurate waste tracking are all significant steps on the road to Zero Waste.
Specialized-Stream Recycling
Our recycling endeavors extend beyond simply evolving our recycling participation within the museum and facility offices. We seek to engage in specialized waste reduction recycling streams that cannot be mixed in with our single stream-hauler. A few of the significant catagories that are being considered by The Henry Ford include:
Glass: Glass is a heavy material of comparatively low value that often requires specialized equipment to recycle. Depending on your location, your single-stream waste hauler may or may not be capable of handling it. However, with the amount of wine and liquor bottles that our Catering Department handles for events, there is plenty of demand and material to justify a special waste stream for hauling. And thankfully, there are a few companies in our area that are capable of recycling it. Once picked up, these bottles can be hauled to a facility where they are crushed into fine particles and can be used for a variety of projects such as insulation, décor, or as material to make new bottles or aggregates.
Batteries: Battery recycling is on the rise thanks to the reuse potential of its raw materials. In fact, when ground down and separated from its packaging and casing, the resulting material is a rich black, almost soil-like color that is colloquially referred to as “black gold.” However, batteries in single-stream recycling and landfills can be dangerous exactly because those raw materials can leach out of the casing onto recyclable materials or even cause a fire to break out in a landfill.
Batteries, just like glass, often require specialized equipment to be recycled effectively and safely.
Battery recycling container / Photo courtesy of Aias Danier
Various Plastic Packaging and Sheeting: LDPE (low-density polyethylene or more recognizably "Number 4 Plastic" like wrap and films), and polystyrene (more recognizably "Number 6 Plastic" like packaging foams and food containers) are often not recycled due to the economic impracticality, but a few businesses across the United States have been able to find new uses for recycled plastic sheeting.
The most common acceptable way to recycle plastic sheeting is through retail stores that participate in plastic collection programs.
Retail stores often participate in these bag recycling programs where customers can drop off their plastic waste and have it hauled to a partnering plastic bag recycling facility or company.
For example, there are companies that make composite decking from a mixture of sawdust and recycled plastic films. Partnerships with companies like these could elevate recycling initiatives closer toward Zero Waste.
Plastic sheeting that requires specialty recycling / Photo courtesy of Aias Danier
Paper: Paper is a generally accepted material to recycle, though can sometimes be complicated to dispose of if the contents are proprietary.
We at the The Henry Ford have a higher demand to dispose of sensitive business documents in a secure fashion due to our administration structure. It is typically more efficient to have a specialized paper shredder company to come on-site with a special box truck to shred our sensitive documents directly on campus before hauling it off to be recycled normally.
Investing in our own paper shredder or numerous smaller paper shredders for a more secure and cost-effective method of handling all paper waste may be of interest to the The Henry Ford in the future, especially if cardboard can be included in that stream.
A collection of paper ready for the shredder / Photo courtesy of Aias Danier
The Facilities team at The Henry Ford remains committed to navigating waste streams, now and into the future. Sharing this work expands our efforts to cultivate environmental responsibility.
Aias Danier is assistant construction manager at The Henry Ford
In 1992, Jill Shurtleff, a designer with the Gillette Razor company, challenged the idea that women’s razors should be limited to the repackaging of men's razors with a different color scheme. Considering how women shave, where they shave and why they shave, Shurtleff created the Sensor for Women razor with a wider handle for better grip and a blade cartridge designed to get into hard-to-see crooks of the body. She might not have known it at the time, but her work intersects with a complex history of body hair removal. Women's relationship with their body hair has evolved tremendously over the past two centuries. Why and how women choose to remove it — or not remove it — reflects changes in technology, politics, fashion, and culture that still impact people today.
The Sensor for Women Razor from Gillette was the first razor designed for women’s shaving needs specifically in mind. / THF803274
Before the mid-1800s, removing so-called "superfluous hair" — the term used for body and facial hair — was rare but could be dangerous. For women who suffered from hirsutism, extra hair growth on the face, books provided homemade depilatory recipes. These remedies often contained caustic and poisonous ingredients such as barium hydroxide, quicklime, and arsenic, but the danger of these chemicals was unknown at the time. Following the American Civil War, electricity transitioned from being a scientific fascination to an everyday utility, and many turned to its power for their hair removal needs. Electrolysis, using electrified needles to zap hair follicles and make the hair fall out, rose in popularity in the 1870s. The process was expensive, grueling, and painful; inattentive dermatologists could permanently scar their patients’ faces. Later hair removal methods were riskier. One infamous depilatory cream known as Koremlu contained thallium acetate, a main ingredient in rat poison; women reported neuropathic pain, blindness, and even paralysis after using Koremlu. In the 1920s, hair salons installed x-ray machines to rid women of facial hair; women exposed to the radiation from these machines experienced ulcerated sores and cancerous tumors on their faces. However, x-ray machines for hair removal processes remained popular until the end of the 1940s.
"Sheer" hair remover, circa 1928-1935. This depilatory cream used the now banned substance, Mercurochrome, a compound of mercury and bromine. / THF802140
Women risked their lives for smooth skin, because the stakes of hairiness were not merely aesthetic. Some women with extreme hair growth on their faces and bodies were put on display for circus entertainment or studied as evolutionary anomalies, practices that caused great harm. Early electrolysis practitioners reported their patients were nearly suicidal due to their hairiness. Prominent psychologist and eugenicist, Knight Dunlap, wrote in a 1921 book that inherent hairlessness was evidence of a woman's fitness for partnership and motherhood. Being hairless was not just about beauty standards; it was seen as proof of one's humanity.
This 1898 Barnum and Bailey’s circus poster shows a woman with hirsutism who was placed on display. / 35.784.116 Image by Kayla Chenault.
Even with these pressures to be hairless, true ubiquity of hair removal came with a change in clothing styles. During the first three decades of the 20th century, women's fashion was revolutionized, and more of the body was on display than ever before. Haute couture designers, such as Paul Poiret or the Callot sisters, created free-flowing, loose-fitting garments inspired by clothing from Ancient Greece, Japan, and the Middle East. These styles came in vogue with fashion-conscious upper-class women in the early 1910s and trickled down into the mainstream during and after the First World War.
Wedding Dress (1918). This Lucile Ltd. wedding dress exemplifies the flowing, popular couture style. / THF29590
These new styles featured short or sheer sleeves, or sometimes no sleeves at all, leaving women's underarms exposed. In 1915, the first advertisements touting the merits of removing underarm hair appeared in women's magazines. The ads featured illustrations of women in the latest gowns, showing off their smoothness, which could be achieved with depilatories or razors. Gillette promoted its Milady Décolleté as the first razor advertised for women. The Milady Décolleté razor was not designed for women specifically; it was the Gillette men's razor with a smaller blade head and specialized packaging. But the advertising worked, and women became a profitable market for safety razors.
Trade Catalogue, "By Request, Gillette Milady Décolleté" (1915). / THF720459 and THF720460
In the 1920s and 1930s, leg hair removal slowly entered the mainstream as popular hemlines exposed more of the leg. Smooth legs were in vogue with young women but caused a minor societal panic over the changing aesthetic. Newspapers ran sensationalist stories about women racing to the doctor after cutting their legs trying to shave them . Some men wrote opinion pieces about disliking the look of smooth legs. The myth that getting rid of one's leg hair made it grow back darker and thicker was a common cautionary tale perpetuated in women’s beauty guides.
Trade Catalogue, "Present Modes demand this harmless preparation," circa 1925. This depilatory cream instruction brochure shows women who have used the cream on their legs. / THF720482
Women fully embraced smooth legs during the Second World War. Wartime rationing programs limited the production of nylon hosiery, leaving women bare-legged. Meanwhile, beautification and personal grooming were considered a patriotic duty for women to boost morale. There was also a lingering belief from earlier eugenic thought that body hairs were "unhygienic" though it had no real scientific basis. Without stockings to cover up these hairs, more women began shaving their legs as a matter of habit.
Photographic print, "Mercury Town Sedan near Suwanee Lagoon in Greenfield Village, July 1941" (1941). / THF134812
In just a few generations, shaving body hair had transitioned from an advertisement ploy and a newspaper novelty to a rite of passage and a necessity for modern women. By the 1960s and 1970s, it was not a question of if someone should shave their legs and underarms but when they should start. Chances are, if you are a woman in the United States, you have tried to get rid some of your body hair. A 2005 study found that 99 percent of women in the U.S. have shaved their body at some point in their lives.
Sears Kenmore Model 820-93942 Electric Shaver, (1960-1970). Electric shavers were advertised to women for the legs and underarms following the Second World War. / THF172751
However, not everyone removes body hair, and there are myriad reasons why. For example, during the 1960s and 1970s, women's rights activists, particularly those who considered themselves women's liberationists, raised concerns about why women removed body hair at all. Some women decided to grow out their hair as a political statement against objectification, as a testament to their gender and sexual identities, and as a part of a "back to nature" ethos. The non-shavers were relatively few, but there was a visceral reaction to the idea of women not shaving. For opponents of the women's movement, "hairy feminist" was an easy punchline and an affront to femininity itself. Visible body hair became shorthand for the politics of the person who chooses it.
Poster, “The Women’s Liberation Movement” (1970). / THF92260
The dynamic and sometimes dangerous evolution of the very personal relationship women have with their body hair continues to inform people’s daily lives — whether they choose to be bare or hairy.
Kayla Chenault is an Associate Curator at The Henry Ford.
